


The Island

by DjaqtheRipper



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthur gets shot in Brazil, Canon Backstory, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Post-Inception, dreamscape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DjaqtheRipper/pseuds/DjaqtheRipper
Summary: On the island, Arthur has forever.“Arthur,” the voice says.He has no name here. He lost it somewhere out beyond the horizon, left it in some other world, long since forgotten, wiped from his mind by white sand and the gentle sway of palm trees.“Arthur,” the voice insists.The man catches a sound on the breeze. Something in it gives him pause. It is familiar, somehow, but it has long gone from this place. It is not a sound of his making, and it has not come from the island or anywhere in the world around him. He closes his eyes and listens.“Arthur!”Arthur opens his eyes. They flood with fluorescent light that makes his head throb. Or maybe that’s the blood loss. He still has an IV prodding the inside of his arm, hooked up to a hanging blood transfusion bag, slowly passing its contents into his body by way of plastic tubing.
Relationships: Arthur & Dom Cobb, Arthur & Eames (Inception), Arthur & Mal Cobb, Arthur/Eames (Inception), Mal Cobb & Eames
Comments: 1
Kudos: 74





	The Island

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-ed by @thewaysinwhich, to whom I am very grateful.

**Breathe.**

_There is white sand between the man’s toes, and the tropical sun has evaporated all the parts of his brain that aren’t here and now, leaving him with only light and the clean salt air that fills his lungs with every inhale. The sea laps at the shore, a low susurrus that is almost a lullaby, murmured low, every word for him and him alone. He can see the horizon on all sides, under a sky that is a forgetful blue, forever clear, marked only by the long arc of the sun--at night, it is inky and absolute oblivion in a way the man had only ever imagined, punctuated by the glow of the moon and the passage of the distant constellations. There is no time here, only day and night of unquantifiable duration. This island is innumerable. The sea whispers its song to the man, and the calling of the circling gulls harmonizes along._

The man is not trying to staunch a flowing bullet hole, in a hospital somewhere in South America. He is not feeling his blood pulse through his fingers, slicking the inflamed skin of his arm and the twitching exposed muscles underneath. He does not feel his desperate fingers shoved roughly away and replaced with the muffling roughness of a thick pad of gauze and the steady pressure of a stranger’s hands. The man is not blanched pale and shivering with what he vaguely remembers is the secondary stage of shock. The man is not bleeding on a rickety gurney in a foreign hospital. 

**Breathe.**

_The man is standing on the beach of an island that is marked on no map, watching the gulls dive low to skim the surface of the water. His eyes trace the lines they carve into the surface of the shallow waves, like a scratch in a masterpiece of blown glass. The water is clear, reflecting the blue of the endless sky, and it fills all of the world that he can see. His is the only island in the ocean, and his ocean is the only one in the world. He lengthens his body to feel the sun warm every inch of his skin. Here, he has forever._

The sharp staccato of his heart is not pounding in his ears, in time with the rush of warmth leaving his body. His nostrils aren’t flooded with the stink of blood and antiseptic. His mind is not racing to translate the dull roar of overlapping voices. He is not wading through the onslaught of sound to seek a voice he recognizes, that comes in and out of focus in a mix of accented English and Portuguese. 

**“Arthur,”** the voice says.

_He has no name here. He lost it somewhere out beyond the horizon, left it in some other world, long since forgotten, wiped from his mind by white sand and the gentle sway of palm trees. ._

**“Arthur,”** the voice insists. 

_The man catches a sound on the breeze. Something in it gives him pause. It is familiar, somehow, but it has long gone from this place. It is not a sound of his making, and it has not come from the island or anywhere in the world around him. He closes his eyes and listens._

**“Arthur!”**

Arthur opens his eyes. They flood with fluorescent light that makes his head throb. Or maybe that’s the blood loss. He still has an IV prodding the inside of his arm, hooked up to a hanging blood transfusion bag, slowly passing its contents into his body by way of plastic tubing. He surveys the room. There are dozens of gurneys cramped into the space, along with scattered hospital visitors wedging themselves between beds. There are people still bleeding and waiting for assistance. Arthur’s been stitched up, at least. The ward is a cacophony of the sounds of illness and pain, layered with the harsh discord of many voices talking over each other and the beeping of heart monitors. It’s absolute chaos: the perfect place to go if you don’t want to be found. Arthur’s vision is still blurry around the edges, but when he blinks it clear he recognizes the face in front of him. 

“Eames, “ he acknowledges. Eames exhales harshly, like he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. 

“Sorry to wake you. How are you feeling?” Eames asks, keeping his voice pitched low. He has to lean in so that Arthur can hear him over the chaos of the ward. 

“I’ve had worse.” Arthur says, but he’s grinding his teeth so hard Eames can probably hear it. He tries to sit up and winces. “How bad’s the damage?” 

“Clean through-and-through,” Eames recites. “That’s about as much as I can make out. My Portuguese is rubbish at best, I’m afraid.” He keeps catching his lip in his teeth and his hands are balled into fists against his knees. _I’m sorry I dragged you to Brazil, he doesn’t say. I’m sorry I got you shot._

“Can’t be worse than mine,” Arthur grunts, sitting up. “Remind me next time to stay where I know how to call an ambulance.”

“Noted.” 

“Did you get what you needed?” Arthur asks, eyes sharp. 

“Leave it to you to bring up the job before you’ve left the emergency room,” Eames sighs, but then yields to Arthur’s look. “The extraction was successful,” he says, ducking his chin. 

Arthur’s eyes narrow. “I’d have thought you’d be in a better mood.” 

Eames’ eyebrows shoot up. His mouth thins. “You’ve just been shot, Arthur, do you really expect me to be thrilled?” His enunciation is impeccable, which is how Arthur knows he’s upset. Arthur knows this because he remembers how Eames’ voice sounded the night Arthur left Eames in order to shepherd Dominic Cobb from job to increasingly desperate job. Arthur had lied to him back then, years ago, back when he’d left. 

_‘Being with you, whatever it was, it wasn’t real’_ Arthur had said, the lie acrid on his tongue, drying his mouth and forcing him to swallow back everything he couldn’t ask for. He had said it for Eames’ sake. 

_‘Of course it wasn’t real.’_ The words cut, but it was his tone that sliced past bone. It sank like ice to the pit of Arthur’s stomach. It had echoed in his ears during a seventeen-hour flight spent trying to grieve while sitting next to Dom, whose grief dwarfed his own so that Arthur felt he had no right to mourn Mal in the first place. No matter that her conspicuous and permanent absence left him gutted, his chest aching with every breath as something heavy and fluid and dark wrapped around his heart. With the askance clarity of someone who has suffered a terrible loss, Arthur watched the lights on a rapidly-approaching runway through the plane window as it touched down on the other side of the world. With the jolt of wheels slamming into pavement, Arthur promised himself he would never make Eames use that voice again. 

Now, lying in this hospital with Eames sitting beside him, he hears the clipped, careful articulation once again. 

Accordingly, he wants to stop this line of conversation right here. 

Arthur softens his tone. “No, I don’t expect you to be thrilled that I got shot. I just thought you’d be glad you’d found out where they’re holding the General.” 

“One would think, yes.” Eames doesn’t meet Arthur’s eyes. “Unfortunately, not so. But we can talk about it later. We’re a bit pressed for time, I’m afraid.” 

“Shit.” 

“Indeed.” 

“Exactly how ‘pressed for time’ are we?” Arthur asks, bracing himself. 

Eames lowers his voice. “I did some damage control while you were out. The Policia Federal came by and were generous enough to take some cash off my hands and totally unrelatedly agree not to pursue criminal investigation against your shooter. Also, for the rest of your stay in this hospital you are a citizen of France, your name is Gaspard Durand, and you’re here to see the Brasil Jazz Festival. You are Europe’s leading jazz ukulele player, and there are many renowned jazz ukulele players who wish to see you come to no good. Ergo, the gunshot wound.” 

Biting his lip against the smile that threatens, Arthur deadpans, “Jazz ukulele players are a competitive bunch, then.” 

Eames rolls his eyes. “Well, yes, _Gaspard,_ as you should know.” 

“Right. Okay. And who are you?” 

Eames tightens his sprawl and pulls his shoulders into himself, shaping himself into someone smaller and quieter. Eames is always a blink away from becoming a stranger, something Arthur finds both unsettling and impressive, though he hates to admit it. Professional admiration, he would call it if prompted. 

“I was your roommate at university,” Eames says in a voice that manages to be square and colorless. “I used to dabble as a jazz guitarist before I settled down with my adoring wife and delightful children.” 

He pulls out his wallet and proudly displays a photo of James and Philippa. 

Arthur loses the battle and smiles slightly. “Looks like you’ve thought of everything.” 

“Perhaps not, but I’ve certainly thought of enough to pacify the Policia Federal,” Eames says, relaxing into his own body again. 

“Thanks.” 

“Of course.” 

Arthur _is_ truly grateful. It’s so rare for him to work with someone whom he can trust to watch his back, trust to get him to a hospital after he’s been shot. Arthur racks his brain and can’t remember the last time he allowed someone to see him unconscious. He’s waging a quiet war against himself debating whether he should say more, but as he debates Eames’ eyes catch his. Eames’ face opens, and for just a second Arthur thinks Eames is about to say something about trusting each other like this again, about the last time they trusted each other like this. They haven’t watched each other’s backs in and outside of the dreamscape since before Arthur told Eames that their relationship wasn’t real. Arthur is not ready to hear it. 

“What’s going on with the people who actually shot me?” he says instead, averting his eyes. He watches the slow drip of the transfusion bag as though he finds it interesting. 

“Haven’t turned up yet.” Eames doesn’t need to explain the ‘yet.’ He lets it hang in the air like an ominous fog. 

Arthur is a good point man. He won’t say as much, but he knows he is widely considered to be the best. He’s run jobs that have felled powerful men and the corporate or criminal empires they controlled. Hell, Arthur once ran point on a job that, when the last domino fell, destroyed the leadership of a major country. Perhaps most memorably, Arthur was part of the team that accomplished the first inception, something previously only theoretical, something even he had thought was impossible. 

But the whole of the job that had put them here tonight, they’d been flying blind. Arthur might be the best, but apparently even he could only achieve the impossible once. It was an extraction, which should have been downright easy following the behemoth that had been inception, except that this extraction was personal. 

The story spans continents and regimes and the lives and ceremonious or unceremonious deaths of men and women the world over. Arthur does not want to think about it right now. He wishes he had the luxury of staying in bed and convalescing. More than that he wants to return to his island with the white sand and clear waters, a place he has only ever seen in dreams. He wasn’t the architect behind his personal paradise, however. 

Eames designed it. 

It has been so long since it’s just been the two of them at work, fighting back-to-back against the rest of the world. They were a team for a long time, before Mal died and Cobb fell apart and Arthur came running to pick up the pieces. 

“Thank you.” Arthur says, thinking of the island that he escapes to when he is in pain or in chaos, the island that Eames made for him. Arthur may condescend, but he tries to be appreciative when he can afford to be. 

“For what?” Eames asks, unfolding a newspaper that he can’t read. 

_For taking care of me,_ Arthur doesn’t say.

“For taking care of the police while I was out.” 

Eames watches Arthur for a moment, almost anticipatory, before he looks back to his paper. “It’s what any good teammate would have done. Professional ethics and all that,” Eames acknowledges, barely, as though this is all they are to each other, as though this is all this means: professional courtesy. 

They’ve been in tighter situations before. There was the time Eames received an untested sedative that he was dangerously allergic to. There was the time when they were kidnapped and left to die in the middle of Death Valley in July, and the time when Arthur’s fingernails were removed by an adversary who got lucky. Most notably, there was the time when Arthur learned he had to leave to meet a distraught and widowed Cobb in less than 24 hours, and he didn’t know where he was going or how long he’d be gone. 

This is not the worst situation they’ve been in, waiting for their mark’s security to show up while Arthur is recovering from a clean through-and-through in a Brazilian hospital. 

The problem is, they never seem to have enough time for Arthur to say what he needs to say. There’s always something between them, whether it’s Cobb, or the Brazillian police force, or all the things they’ve left unsaid since Arthur left, all the weight they each carried working together again during inception. They never have enough time. 

Arthur knows where they have enough time. Arthur knows where they can go and have forever. All it takes is a PASIV and two doses of Somnacin and they can have as long as they need. There’s a reason Arthur’s island has forgetful blue skies and no one else to disturb him: it is where he goes to have all the time that he needs. This is where he goes to escape everything else. 

The best years of Arthur’s life were spent on the island that has only ever existed in dreams, back when Eames shared it with him. 

The night before Arthur left to find Cobb, he told Eames where he was going. They had only hours and they needed more time to resolve years of wanting and not having, so Eames built them the perfect place to escape to and together they entered the dream. Two levels deep--Cobb and Mal weren’t the only dreamers to experiment, but they were such a cautionary tale that Arthur and Eames didn’t dare to go deeper. Together, they had years. Arthur learned every line in Eames’ body, every curve, the swirl of every tattoo. He learned his life and his tastes, learned to cook chicken tikki masala the way Eames’ favorite place in London did, learned to make tea with a splash of milk and two sugar cubes, the way Eames liked it. He learned the shape of his face and memorized it, and rememorized it as the mouth started to sag and the first wrinkles appeared, and memorized it over and over until it was thickly lined but the eyes still bright, the smile still as magnetic as ever. 

They were in love and grew old and lived an entire lifetime together, and when they woke up twelve hours later they were young and had the rest of their lives ahead of them and still somehow had no time because Arthur was leaving. And then Arthur, thinking he would probably be killed following around after Cobb, tried to break it off by saying that it wasn’t _real,_ which of course it absolutely was. The time they had together were the best years of Arthur’s life and it was like they’d never even happened. 

Maybe it’s the pain meds or the adrenaline but Arthur is done pretending that the best years of his life weren’t there. 

Eames is reading the Brazilian newspaper and letting Arthur rest like nothing has happened, like Arthur hasn’t run through decades in his head, hasn’t made the biggest decision he can remember making. 

“Eames.” He says, just to get Eames to look at him. Eames does and when they meet eyes Eames must be able to tell something is coming, because he folds up the newspaper and turns his full attention to Arthur. 

“I’m listening.” He says, like he means it. Like he’s waiting for something. 

Suddenly Arthur is unsure how to start. “Do you remember the island?” 

Eames freezes for a moment, then exhales sharply, like he’s been punched. “Our island?” he asks, as though waiting for Arthur to correct him. 

“Our island.” 

“Of course I remember, Arthur.” Eames leans back in his chair and crosses his legs, his body closing, the mask reappearing in the form of a slight, self-deprecating smile. “I thought you said it wasn’t real.” 

Arthur sits up straighter, even though his stitches pull and his body aches with it. “It was real. I never thought it wasn’t. I just, I wanted to make it easier on you if I died. You know, because I was looking after Dom. But I was lying, Eames. It was the most real thing I’ve ever had.” 

The mask doesn’t fall away. “That’s just the pain meds talking, Arthur. You’ll feel differently when they wear off.” With Arthur’s look he softens slightly, adding, “We can talk about it then.” 

“I want to talk about it now,” Arthur says, feeling not unlike a petulant child. Eames gives a long-suffering sigh, like Arthur is being ridiculous. He opens his mouth to reply but Arthur cuts him off.

“I’m serious, Eames.” Arthur says sternly. Even in a hospital gown with tubes coming out of his arm, he’s still sharp as ever. _Like an AK-47 in a three-piece suit,_ Eames had once said on their island, kissing him to take away the sting. 

“Do you know where I go when I’m in pain? When I’ve been shot or I’m being tortured or driving myself crazy on a job?” Arthur starts, the words coming more rapidly than he can control them. 

“I’ve no idea,” Eames says, face giving nothing away. It’s like they’re playing a poker game: Arthur just showed his hand and Eames isn’t sure if he’s won yet. 

“I go to the island. Our island. When you brought me here, when I was bleeding, that’s where I went. It’s the place I was the happiest.” He can’t stop the words now. “I wander around the island in my dreams and look everywhere. I look everywhere, Eames. Out in the ocean. On the beach, behind those trees? But you’re never there.” Arthur swallows. He wants to look away, but he needs Eames to see how much he means this. “I’ve spent years on our island looking for you and you’re never there. I don’t want to do it anymore. I want you there for real. Eames …” 

Arthur has to break to cough. The cough rattles his chest and his wounds burn fresh. If Eames responds it will be worth it. 

Eames stands, and for a second Arthur panics, thinking he’s walking away. Instead, he pulls his chair closer and reaches for Arthur’s hand, tenderly brushing aside the IV tubing. 

“Arthur…” he says, and for the first time Arthur realizes whose voice he’d been hearing while he was being treated. The sound is a caress, soft and low, escaping impossibly full lips. Arthur wants his name to linger on Eames’ lips and have him repeat it every time it fades away. 

“I’m right here.” He takes Arthur’s hand. “I’ve always been here.” 

“Here? For real?” Arthur asks, squeezing Eames’ hand. 

“Yes, for real.” Eames smiles earnestly, and Arthur doesn’t mind the pain when he sits, he has to kiss him right now. It’s clunky and awkward, and the IV tubing pulls painfully. His heart rate monitor begins beeping erratically. Arthur’s stitches pull as his breathing hitches and he’s left gasping into Eames’ mouth. It might be the most painful kiss he’s ever had. 

It’s even better than in his dreams. 


End file.
